10 die in Angolan plane crash
2008-01-19 21:19
Lisbon - A light aircraft crashed into a
mountain near the Angolan city of Huambo on Saturday killing all
ten people on board, Portugal's Lusa news agency said on
Saturday.
Lusa cited a source close to the Angolan government as
saying two of the victims were Portuguese. The head of Angola's
national aviation centre, Celso Rosas, told Lusa that bad
weather may have caused the airplane to crash.
The airplane belonged to a company that operates chartered
flights in Angola.
The Beechcraft King Air B200 twin-propeller left Luanda, the
capital, at about 0600 GMT and was headed for Huambo, a city
approximately 450 km to the south-east.
The country's worst recent year for air accidents occurred
in 2000, when two separate crashes claimed 87 lives in one
month.
Last year, a Boeing 737 belonging to Angola's state TAAG
airline crashed in the northern city of M'banza Congo, killing
at least six people and badly injuring others.